Below are some tidbits on baseball and sportscard collecting.
Visit our web site for more info on vintage and current
baseball, football, basketball, hockey, sports and
non-sport cards and card collecting.

Q1: How long have sports cards been around ?

(part 1)
The first baseball trading cards date back to 1869. For many years,
baseball cards were packaged in packs of tobacco as a way to increase sales
the same way that today prizes are packaged in boxes of cereal.
In the 1920's and 1930's, candy and gum companies started packaging baseball
cards in their products as well.

Baseball card production was virtually halted in the early 1940's due to paper
shortages created by World War II. The "Modern Era" of baseball cards began in
1948 when Bowman Gum Inc. offered one card and one piece of gum in a pack for a penny.

The first important football set was the Mayo set featuring college players
in 1984. Other than the 1935 National Chicle set no other key football set was
issued until 1948 when noth Bowman and Leaf produced sets.

The issue below is featured elsewhere on this website:

1974 Topps DECKLE EDGE

This 72-card test issue set was released with a very limited distribution
on only the East Coast around Massachusetts making them quite scarce.
They were Officially simply called "Topps Baseball Photos"
but their serrated or "DECKLED" edge gave them the name they go by today.
The 2 7/8" x 5" inch cards were sold in either a 2 card pack
with gum or a 3 card pack with no gum for 5 cents.

The cards were meant to have the look
of the black and white movie star photos from the 1950's and feature a
black & white photo with a blue facsimilie autograph on the front.
The backs make this very scarce test issue even more interesting !
They feature handwritten script of the player's name, team, position & date
and location of the photograph as well as a mock newspaper article on the
player's career.

This was Topps 2nd "Deckle Edge" issue, their first being their smaller
and much more common 1969 Topps Deckle Edge which were inserts in
certain series of packs of 1969 Topps cards.

Variations of 1974 Topps Deckle Edge do exist,
making this issue even more fun and challenging to collect.
The backs can be found in either gray or a much scarcer white version.
Also, a more limited proof version with non-scalloped edges exists and
occasionally can be found.

1969 Topps Stamps

This was Topps 3rd stamp issue in the last eight years and it was a good one !!!
The stamps were not inserts but a totally separate issue .
For a nickel you got a strip of twelve stamps plus a mini album.
The 1969 Topps Stamps complete set contains 240 stamps. The 1 x 1-7/16 inch
stamps were unnumbered and featured a color photo with the player's name,
team and position inside a colored banner at the bottom of the stamp.
The stamps were released in both vertical and horizontal strips of 12
stamps. The 1969 Topps Stamps are often confused with Topps' 1974
issue. The 1974 Topps Stamps have ovals rather than banners at the bottom
and were released only in 12-stamp horizontal panels.

Along with the stamps, Topps also issued a set of 24 albums, one per team,
to store them in. The 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" orange albums were the same size
as a baseball card and held a complete 10-stamp team set.
To add even more collecting fun, the album's back cover had
facsimile autographs of the ten players shown in the album.

The 1969 Topps Stamps set is packed with stars like Pete Rose along with
tons of Hall-of-Famers including MICKEY MANTLE, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente
& many, many more !!!